The present invention relates to an electronic scale with a CRT (cathod-ray tube) display function for displaying various items of information, such for example as unit price, weight, total price, of goods weighed by the electronic scale.
There have heretofore been widely used electronic scales with a display capability for displaying the measured weight, unit price, and total price of an article to be sold. Such electronic scales normaly use four- or five-figure numerical-readout tubes for displaying weights, unit prices and total prices. Where it is necessary to display various modes such as "subtotal", "total", "department code" and the like in addition to "weight", "unit price" and "total price", particular preset numerals are entered to select such display modes, or particular function keys are depressed to enable the numerical-readout tubes to display the information. The numerical-readout tubes are associated respectively with markings such as "unit price" printed by silk screen printing process. These markings however make the user feel uneasy when the additional information is displayed as it disagrees with the markings. When the additional information items "subtotal", "total" and "department code" are to be displayed after the three principal items "weight", "unit price" and "total price" have been displayed, it would be possible to depress function keys to display the additional information items on a time-series basis, that is, alternately. However, this would require additional key depressions and prevent the user from seeing the various information items at the same time, thus imposing serious problems on electronic scales having more and more functions added for use as an information processing terminal device. The amount of information needed to be displayed cannot be fully displayed as the display capacity of numerical-readout tubes is about 10 figures at maximum. The numerical-readout tubes are also disadvantageous in that it is difficult for the user to know information such as weight data, totalling data, registration data at the moment the user operates the electronic scale, and it is entirely impossible to display information in the form of Chinese characters and graphs, for example.
The conventional electronic scales have been capable of printing on a receipt the data of sales in addition to the weight, the price, and other data. However, they have no provision for printing the time of sales. No electronic scales have been available which can total the prices in different time zones in which the electronic scale was used, that is, articles were weighed and sold. Therefore, it has not been possible to analyze data in detail so as to determine the time-dependent tendency of sales. This has prevented large-scale retail stores from effectively posting sales employees to meet sales demands varying with time.
The prior electronic scales must be switched on and off by manual intervention. They cannot automatically start and stop their operation at a preset time, and also fail to automatically start and stop the operation of other devices connected to their external control terminals. The conventional electronic scales do not have the ability to indicate the changing of operators at a prescribed time. Accordingly, the electronic scales presently available have been no more than passive devices which can only weigh articles to be sold, calculate their prices, and total the prices in response to the operator's action through a manual data input device. The use of the manual data input device requires manual labor which is costly due to an increase in personnel expenses, leads to operation errors, and needs a period of time in weighing articles sold and displaying their prices.
Articles for sale are marked with labels showing various pieces of information. For example, labels indicating unit prices need to be applied to articles that will be weighed for sale. No such labels however are needed for articles which will be sold in a fixed quantity or for a fixed amount of money, but effective dates and bar codes have to be printed on such articles. Accordingly, items are printed on articles in various modes dependent on the manners or place of sale. It is convenient with articles for sale on a weight basis to automatically print data on labels attached to the articles in association with an electronic scale immediately after the articles have been weighed thereby. This type of automatic data printing is not necessary with articles to be sold in fixed quantities or for fixed amounts of money. Instead, data should be printed by manually depressing a print key each time an article is sold. Therefore, switching between automatic and manual printing modes is required.
One conventional way for mode selection has been to provide snap switches respectively for modes so that a desired mode can be selected by actuating a corresponding one of the snap switches. Since as many snap switches as there are modes to be selected are required, however, the control panel of an electronic scale with many modes is of a complex arrangement which the user finds cumbersome in operation, and a circuit connected to so many snap switches, is rendered relatively poor in operational reliability.